The widespread emergence of the Internet has led to a number of popular online content repositories. An online content repository typically functions as a web-based service that allows users to upload and share different types of content. The content can be, for example, digital images, photographs, video files, documents such as blogs etc., and the like. Several companies have emerged that specialize in providing the storage and access services for online content repositories. Such companies include, for example, Flickr™ (photographs, etc.), Youtube™ (video, etc.), and the like.
Content that is uploaded typically has one or more associated descriptive tags. The tags are associated with a particular content object (e.g., photograph, etc.) to facilitate subsequent searching for the object. Thus, in a case where a particular user uploads large number of pictures, the online content repository needs some mechanism that allows other users to subsequently search through the pictures to find particular ones of interest. The tags facilitate this searching process. Generally, the more descriptive the tag, the more searchable and usable the overall content collection.
Continuing the photograph example, particularly interesting photographs benefit from having a number of descriptive and coherent tags. For example, in a “sunset” album containing a large collection of photographs of different sunset landscapes, a photograph showing a tornado at sunset is potentially interesting to a very large number of users. If such a photograph is tagged as being “sunset” and is also tagged with “extreme weather”, “tornado”, and “storm chaser”, the photograph can be found by a much larger audience of interested users. If the photograph is simply tagged as “sunset”, the potential audience is much smaller since many users would never think to browse sunset photographs to discover images of a tornado.
Currently, the person uploading the content is responsible for appropriately tagging the content. This results in a wide variation in the quality of the tagging. Some users may not include any tags at all. Many users may only include a single tag, which can be overly simplistic. Tags themselves can be misleading. No coherent methodology for tagging content is presented to the user.
Furthermore, adding content to a web based content repository is typically a cumbersome process that requires copying the content from the web page into another format. For example, users typically must convert a Word™ document or Acrobat™document into a preferred format of the repository prior to uploading. Furthermore, the uploading to the content repository usually involves visiting a website and using the particular tools provided by that web site. As described above, the person uploading the content is responsible for tagging content. The availability of an appropriate taxonomy, the selection of a relevant position in a taxonomy hierarchy, and any useful keywords for the tagging exist only to the extent of the motivation of the user.
Thus, those cases where a content repository does not have appropriate tags leads to the fact that the content is less discoverable. The content, even though it may be exceptionally compelling, may not be found and utilized by other potentially interested users. This may be contrary to the entire point of certain online content repositories. For example, the whole point of many blogs is to be discoverable.